+Vincent Nichols: Progress on Ordinariate & Principal Church

11122011

This is a transcript from part of the Press Conference following the November 2011 Plenary Meeting of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England & Wales. In it, Madeleine Teahan (Catholic Herald) asks Archbishop Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster and President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England & Wales, about progress relating to the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham as discussed at the meeting. The full audio can be found here.

MT: As I understand it the Ordinariate was discussed aswell during the time. The first question is, what is the progress on the Ordinariate project and, most specifically, do they have a church yet? [Ed: Second question about holydays of obligation].

+VN: Yes, we had report from Monsignor Keith Newton. He gave us an indication of the present numbers within the Ordinariate, and that was about 60 clergy and about 1000 people. He gave us some indication of those who where coming forward, as it were, in a second wave – at the moment I think he said that there were about 20 clergy, most of them with some groups, but he didn’t specify the size of the groups. We talked quite a bit about the support of those 60 clergy and how co-operation between the Ordinariate clergy and diocesan responsibilities is going quite well. I think you will have seen that some of the Ordinariate clergy are taking posts in the dioceses. Some of those posts are chaplaincy posts, some of those are parish posts – posts in parishes – and that is obviously helping the Ordinariate to carry its’ responsibilities for its clergy.

With regard to churches: the groups that exist on the whole find their use of the local diocesan church perfectly adequate. I think I read that the Archbishop of Southwark has more or less handed one church into the care of the Ordinariate. With regard to the suggestion that constantly comes up about a headquarters church, as it were – a cathedral for the Ordinariate – I think that is something probably beyond their resources at the present time, and I don’t think the Ordinariate would thank us, actually, to simply give it responsibility for a church that it would have to then maintain and upkeep. That day might well come, and it certainly is not ruled out there are various things under consideration – but the timing of it is not to be rushed, and nor should it be made into some sort of iconic issue: it isn’t. The Ordinariate is getting established, it’s getting ready for its’ second step, and we will see how it develops in that proper organic way.

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Pray for the Ordinariates

Eternal Father, we place before you the project of forming the Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans seeking full communion with the Catholic Church.

We thank you for this initiative of Pope Benedict XVI, and we ask that, through the Holy Spirit,
the Ordinariates may become:
families of charity, peace and the service of the poor, centres for Christian unity and reconciliation, communities that welcome and evangelize, teaching the Faith in all its fullness, celebrating the liturgy and sacraments with prayerful reverence and maintaining a distinctive patrimony of Christian faith and culture.

Drawing on that heritage we pray:

Go before us, O Lord,
in all our doings
with thy most gracious favour,
and further us
with thy continual help;
that in all our works, begun,
continued and ended in thee,
we may glorify thy holy name,
and finally by thy mercy
obtain everlasting life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.Amen.

Our Lady of Walsingham:Pray for us as we claim
your motherly care.

Saint Therese of the Infant Jesus:Pray for us as we place this
work under your patronage.

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This website is an unofficial blog which aims to support the generosity of Pope Benedict XVI in his Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus. It is not a website of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham but it does aim to relay information from various news sources, including the Ordinariate, to a wider audience. Visit the official website of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham here: www.ordinariate.org.uk and pray for those seeking to implement Anglicanorum coetibus throughout the Catholic Church.